16 | MAY 4 • 2023
that provides crucial information
about a person or a family. This
can include approximate date of
birth, location and even social
class.
Berenson receives the records
in typed Cyrllic, reviews them
and then puts them through a
system developed by a JewishGen
volunteer named Logan Kleinwaks
that will change the documents
into English and load them onto
the JewishGen server with just two
clicks.
For Berenson, who is 81 and
lives in Sonoma and San Francisco,
California, getting these records
out in her lifetime was a priority.
“We’re really doing it,” she says.
None of the work is free. As a
nonprofit organization, JewishGen
relies largely on funding from
donors to keep the records coming
to the site. General membership is
free, but members have an option
to donate $100 for a year’s-worth
of advanced search features that
allow you to further narrow down
search results.
Many of the JewishGen
coordinator and research division
directors are volunteers like
Berenson, and the work branches
far beyond Ukraine to include
records in dozens of countries
worldwide. JewishGen also houses
essential Holocaust and burial
records.
MILLIONS MORE TO GO
Now, with the open access to
Ukraine archives, these Jewish
record groups are some of the
largest available on the JewishGen
website for researchers to search.
JewishGen Ukraine Research
Division also continues to gain
access to previously difficult-to-
acquire record groups, such as
records from the Kherson Archive
(an area hit hard by the ongoing
Ukraine-Russia war), which are
now going live on JewishGen.
“Another area that’s very hard
[to access] is Crimea,” Berenson
explains. “We’ve never had
anything from there.”
Still, researchers hope there are
rare records and books waiting to
be discovered. “One type of record
that’s very much sought after is
the 1895-1897 all-Russia census
that covered the whole country,”
Berenson says. “That was Ukraine
at the time. The requirements were
that two copies were made, and
both were meant to be destroyed.”
Many, she says, were ultimately
destroyed — but a handful
survived, including Kiev.
Now, JewishGen is in the middle
of transcribing the 1895 Kiev
census. They’re halfway through
completing what will be essential
information for hundreds of
thousands of families, since Kiev
had one of the largest Jewish
population centers in Ukraine.
According to what Berenson has
been told, five areas included in
the 1895-1897 all-Russia census
survived destruction, like Kiev.
JewishGen Ukraine Research
Division is also working on
transcribing records from the
census list of Kamenets-Podolsk
in western Ukraine, an area
with previously very few records
available on the website.
“We’re very excited,” Berenson
says. “That happens to be near the
area that my grandparents came
from.” These records, like many
others, fell victim to fire and arrive
as scans in Berenson’s inbox with
the edges burned. “It’s very sad,
but we’ve got the information in
there mostly. We save what we
can.”
Once transcribing and uploading
1 million records from Ukraine —
a project that began in late 2022 —
is complete this summer, the work
will continue for the next million.
“The number 1 million sounds
very good, but it doesn’t mean
much to me,” Berenson says,
“because I know we have many
times that to tackle.”
Visit www.jewishgen.org/# for more
information.
Kiev 1834
Census
continued from page 15
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